Hive Inspections - Important Information

The inspection form has a voluntary Best Practices Management (BPM) program. If you agree to the BPM program, you agree to immediately re-queening your hives if the marked queen is not found. BPM also includes a recommended provision about re-queening every six months unless there is a marked queen AND you have a bill of sale from a EHB queen producer. Read before you sign.

I had my hives inspected on Monday. The Inspector pre-filled "YES" for me to sign up for the BPM program; I made her change the form to "NO". Good luck!

Recently it was brought to the attention of the Palm Beach Bee Keeper’ association that the state of Florida is considering legislation which would allow an inspector to label a hive “Africanized” simply by its level of aggression. Then having labeled the hive as “Africanized” would insist that the hive be re-queened.

Furthermore, the state is considering legislation that would require registered beekeepers to re-queen their hive annually or semi-annually.

We believe that these proposals would be a mistake and would in fact increase the number of aggressive hives rather than decrease them for the following reasons.

It is not possible to accurately access the genotype of a honeybee by observation alone. It requires extensive laboratory testing. And at this point in time the majority of honeybees in South Florida have some African genes.

European honeybees can be aggressive at times. The most common example is when queen less.

By forcing beekeeper to re queen hives with known hygienic queens the state would be setting up the next generation to be hybridized. This hybridized generation from a hygienic queen and most likely African drone would be more aggressive.

Recently it was brought to the attention of the Palm Beach Bee Keeper’ association that the state of Florida is considering legislation which would allow an inspector to label a hive “Africanized” simply by its level of aggression. Then having labeled the hive as “Africanized” would insist that the hive be re-queened.

Furthermore, the state is considering legislation that would require registered beekeepers to re-queen their hive annually or semi-annually.

We believe that these proposals would be a mistake and would in fact increase the number of aggressive hives rather than decrease them for the following reasons.

It is not possible to accurately access the genotype of a honeybee by observation alone. It requires extensive laboratory testing. And at this point in time the majority of honeybees in South Florida have some African genes.

European honeybees can be aggressive at times. The most common example is when queen less.

By forcing beekeeper to re queen hives with known hygienic queens the state would be setting up the next generation to be hybridized. This hybridized generation from a hygienic queen and most likely African drone would be more aggressive.

Lee: my understanding is that the state will take a sample of bees and do a DNA test at the University of Florida. If the DNA says it is AHB; then you must requeen. The argument, as I understand it, is that the requeening should be based on aggression, not upon genetics, which makes sense.

As I stated, at this point in time all Florida bees probably have some African genes.

And any bee hive can be aggressive depending on more than simply there genetic profile.

Furthermore, I agree with Michael Bush that re-queening will make the problem worse not better.

Michael Bush, being considered and expert by most, stated that he had developed a system for identifying aggressive hives. His method consisted of using a red push pin to first mark a hive he considered aggressive. He would reinspect the same hive at regular intervals over time. If the hive was assigned three red pins he would re-queen it. What the state is proposing that this determination can be made in a single visit. Beekeepers are not going to keep an aggressive hive. But the state policies take the bees owners choices away and mandate that the owner comply. Do we really need to be told what to do at this level?

If this is the policies the state is proposing we had better get together and tell them we disagree and why or beekeeping as we know it is over.

Remember some of the scariest words a citizen can hear are " I'm here from the Government and I am here to help."